← Bulwark Takes
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- [00:01]
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- [00:30]
Bill Kristol
What's up everybody?
- [00:31]
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Kevin Levin
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- [01:02]
Bill Kristol
Hi, Bill Kristol here. Welcome to Bulwark on Sunday. Very pleased to be joined today by Kevin Levin, Civil War historian, American historian, but with excellent substack Civil War Memory, which I recommend everyone read and subscribe to. I've written several books on American history and I guess Kevin, your most recent book. Not recent, your forthcoming book is out in September. Say a word about that because I think it sounds fascinating.
- [01:26]
Kevin Levin
Yeah. Great to be here with you, Bill. Forthcoming book, September with the University of North Carolina Press called A Glorious the Life and Legacy of Colonel Robert Gould Shaw. So many of you probably remember him from the movie glory in 1989 with Matthew Broderick, Denzel Washington and Morgan Freeman. But first biography of Shaw to be published in about 25 years. So I'm really excited about it.
- [01:46]
Bill Kristol
Yeah, that's great. I've admired the Shaw monument and the Boston Common. And as I was saying to you before the show that I was up just doing something else in Boston I guess about half a few months ago and walked over to look, I wasn't just saying near the Commons. So looked over to look at it again. Really a fantastic thing. And that was put up. I mean he was famous right after the Civil War in real time, right?
- [02:08]
Kevin Levin
Absolutely. He becomes a martyr to the emancipationist cause almost immediately in large part because of his mother and she's largely responsible for that memorial in the Boston Common that was dedicated in 1897. Still, I think our greatest piece of Civil War art, perhaps after the Lincoln Memorial.
- [02:25]
Bill Kristol
Wow, that's an Interesting way to think about it.
- [02:28]
Bretzky
Yeah.
- [02:29]
Bill Kristol
You've written about this a lot. The centrality we'll get to Trump in the 250th and all that, but probably better to begin with something a little more the centrality of the Civil War to American history. I mean, that really is something that. I understood it in some level, but I didn't really come to grips with it. I wouldn't say until maybe a few years after I began studying some of this stuff in grad school.
- [02:48]
Kevin Levin
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it is still in some ways that central event in our history. I say that even, you know, as we approach the 250th, but you can't escape that language in our public discourse. We're debating, still debating monuments and Confederate monuments and other Confederate symbols. That language is pervasive still in our culture. And as a historian, I'm fascinated by that. And so it's the reason I sort of explore on my substack and elsewhere, the whole question about memory. How. How do we remember the past? Why do we disagree about certain aspects of the past? What does it tell us about sort of that national identity?
- [03:26]
Bill Kristol
There's that wonderful Orwell quote that I guess everyone has now used in the last 10 years. And so I. I hesitate to use it too much, but it is very apt, I mean, from 1984. What is it? Who controls the past, controls the future. Who controls the present, controls the past.
- [03:40]
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- [03:41]
Bill Kristol
It's one of the things I read in 1984 when I was a kid, and I've read it subsequently and thought a bit about it some. But really, I would say, honestly, the Trump era and the attempts to, I would say, hijack the past in the present in order to control the future kind of really brings it home. But I suppose that's something we've been doing for. It's an eternal truth, not just a Trump era truth, right?
- [04:01]
Kevin Levin
Oh, I think that's absolutely right. In fact, as much as we talk about what's happening during the Trump era, I think it is important to remember that, you know, our history has always been controversial. We've always disagreed about certain aspects of how we teach it, how we remember it, how we commemorate it. The Civil War is obviously, obviously, like I said, central to that, that process. And, you know, it's always been politicized, and we should remember that. That said, I do think that we are witnessing something quite different over the last few years, and so it's definitely worth exploring.
- [04:36]
Bill Kristol
So say a word about what we're witnessing over the last few years. I do. I will come back to the Civil War, no matter, because I know you have some interesting thoughts on the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, which we just celebrated. Celebrated. Commemorated what, 15 years ago or so?
- [04:48]
Kevin Levin
Obviously.
- [04:49]
Bill Kristol
So. But, yeah. What's the core of what strikes you about the Trump attempt? Pretty organized attempt with Freedom250 and the diversion of federal fines. It's not like people sort of treat it as if it's just a few tweets by Trump, but it's not. There's a lot of money and a lot of federal agencies involved and so forth to. To shape our understanding of the 250th.
- [05:10]
Kevin Levin
There was certainly a lot of organization and thinking that went into this, and we can go back, I guess, to the end of Trump's first term. That's when he formed what, Project 1776, which was at the time a response to the 1619 Project out of the New York Times. And, you know, when he came back into office in January 2025, you know, he restarted that project and then shortly thereafter created his own sort of 250th organization or movement called the Freedom 250, which, of course, stands in contrast to what Congress authorized back in 2016, which is the America250 organization. And so it was very clear from the beginning. I think there was a lot of anticipation as to what extent Trump would try to hijack the 250th. I certainly didn't have any answers at that time. But when he created the Freedom 250 sort of organization framework, it was pretty clear to me that he was going to attempt to go as far as he could in terms of branding the 250th. Right. To sort of stamp his own image as much as possible on that. And I think that is what. That's what's new about this. Again, you know, we talked before the show about the bicentennial, certainly controversial, certainly politicized, but we didn't see the Nixon administration sort of create its own organization at that time. Right. There were a lot of funds that were appropriated, but again, Congress, I think, took the lead. And I think that's very different from what we're seeing this time. And we're seeing this play out in, you know, on a daily basis right now, as we approached, what, just a few weeks away to the. To the official 250th. So a lot has already happened. We can talk about the problem with the National Park Service, the Smithsonian, NEH Grants and then also, of course, the extent to which Trump is really going to impact how Americans in their respective communities will actually experience the 250th.
- [07:16]
Bill Kristol
Yeah, I mean, there's sort of two things going on. Maybe it's worth separating a little, which is one is, I mean, Trump being a. Whatever he is, a narcissist or something, you know, wants it to be about him. So that's one thing. And that we've never had that degree of narcissism in the Oval Office before. People may have had that degree, but people didn't feel they could express it, you know, and didn't have a whole administration with full of people helping him carry out his narcissistic wishes. But then there's also the more ideological project, which one associates say with that Project 1776, with Claremont, with the whole school of thinkers, if you want to call. And then historians or quasi historians and organizations that have tried to put a certain kind of. I don't know what to call, you know, patriotic and edifying and whatever whitewashing, one might say stamp on American history and on 250. So, I mean, say a word about each of those aspects and correct me if I sort of have been optimistic that Trump's isn't shaping our understanding that it's sort of failing. I mean, it's, it's, it's a. It's. I don't like it and it's annoying and it's, you know, whatever. But anyway, take whatever, pick up whichever of those themes you want.
- [08:22]
Kevin Levin
No, I, I think, I think you make a good point. I think the way to understand Trump's attempt to frame and control this 250th narrative is a sign of the extent to which, the extent of the changes that we've seen in different respects over the last few decades. So you can look at, for example, what students are learning in the classroom. We can certainly talk about the limitations and the problems of public education. But there's no question that what kids today are learning, the overall narrative that they're learning, is a very different one, much more inclusive, much broader, much more complicated than what their parents and especially their grandparents learned. The National Park Service, much broader than
- [09:02]
Bill Kristol
what Donald Trump learned.
- [09:03]
Kevin Levin
No question about that.
- [09:04]
Bill Kristol
I mean, so much about. Of him is about what he vaguely remembers. I don't know how much he attended in school, but, you know, what he vaguely remembers from the 50s and 60s. Right.
- [09:12]
Kevin Levin
Or misremembers, we could say, but also the National Park Service, the kinds of sort of interpretations that you will find at places like Civil War battlefields or presidential homes, et cetera. Again, much more sort of expansive, much more willing to address some of the more complicated questions that, of course, we were unwilling as a nation to address not that long ago, and especially, of course, in connection to the issues of slavery, issue of race, et cetera. So I think, you know, those, you know, we've certainly seen those types of changes over the years, and I think what we're seeing now is an attempt to push back the clock, and I don't think it's really working. I think, you know, the way most people consume history, it is, you know, think about just the amount of information available on the Internet, social media. We can talk about the problems and limitations there as well. But to try to control it, to create a central narrative, I think is incredibly difficult and I would argue a lost cause. And I think it's also safe to say, and I'll end here, the way most Americans are going to experience the 250th early next month is in their own communities. Certainly what Trump has been doing, whether it's a UFC fight or, you know, a prayer service to, you know, mark the nation as a Christian nation. Not too long ago, they might get a lot of media attention. But how Americans are actually going to experience some aspect of the 250th is going to be much more local and have nothing at all to do with what's going on in Washington, D.C. i
- [10:55]
Bill Kristol
was struck, I wrote a little item for morning shots 10 days ago or so, just making the point you made and saying that was good and that Americans really should not let Trump shape. They should enjoy their local ceremonies and also they should enjoy July 4th. Honestly. They don't have to be like us and they don't have to ponder, you know, read up on the history of the. Of July 2nd and July 4th and John Adams's letter and all that, and Jefferson. They can just have a good time and appreciate being in America and think a bit about what America has accomplished over the centuries and all that.
- [11:29]
Kevin Levin
Yeah, absolutely. It might be enough on July 4th just to be able to connect with people in your own neighborhood beyond the whole issue of politics, to remind ourselves that perhaps we do have something more in common with one another once we can actually get beyond the divisiveness of our. Of our current politics. Perhaps I'm an old fogey and sort of.
- [11:49]
Bill Kristol
No, no, I think.
- [11:50]
Kevin Levin
But I want to go there.
- [11:52]
Bill Kristol
I think there's a lot to do. I was gonna say, I mean, the Response I got to this fairly. I thought straightforward and little item was pretty, was more than usual. I mean, I just, people clearly want that. Want what you're saying and they want to kind of go to have that sense. I take it from your account. I mean, I just. On the new understand the current understanding, if I could put it this way, July 4th, the revolution, the Civil War, et cetera, you think on the whole it's been a, I mean, some of my conservative friends, you know, oh my God, Howard Zinn has taken over our history and now it's all kind of quasi Marxist and so forth. I'm not actually, I don't agree with Howard Zinn on various things. But you think on the whole, it's been a healthy kind of complexifying and deepening of our understanding. Not a kind of, not a woke count, not a woke hijacking to which Trump is merely engaged in counter woke hijacking.
- [12:40]
Kevin Levin
Yeah. I think that language of wokeness, at least coming from Trump and others at that sort of in D.C. within that circle, is really an attempt to, to, to use history to serve a certain politics and a certain political agenda. I think if you want to find the quote, unquote wokeness out there, the sort of the Howard Zins, if you will, you'll find it. But I don't know to what extent, and maybe this is just something we'll have to wait to better understand. Looking back on the 250th, I don't get the sense that that is where most Americans are right now. That's not to minimize the differences in how we are approaching the 250th. But it's hard to know to what extent that sort of broader left agenda, if you will, is defining or to what extent it is defining. I don't get that sense. When I walk into most bookstores, for example, you know, I see a lot of sort of what I would describe as mainstream sort of narrative scholarship. Think about who won, you know, the, the latest Pulitzer Prize for history, and that's Jill Lepore for her recent sort of synthesis, a really nice accounting of the history of the Constitution. She attempted to put out a similar book about American history a couple of years before, called these Truths, and it did fairly well. So I think there is a hunger for really good history and history that is not attempting to push a certain political agenda, whether that be a liberal or conservative one. And I'm also reminded of the, the loss of the historian Gordon Wood in the last two weeks or week. You know, we really need I think voices like his at a time like this, even though, of course, even his scholarship has come under criticism in recent years. But, you know, look, that's part of what we do when, you know, we're engaging in sort of reviewing books and thinking about history critically. And I think I'll just, I want to say this, I think that critical thinking about history is something that the Trump administration has worked very hard to stamp out. Right. And that is, I think that should be our bigger concern, that what it's trying to do in rolling back sort of our understanding of the past is to roll it back to a point where it was this very comforting narrative about 1776 and about American history generally. And we don't really need to do that, I think, to have an embrace, an account that allows us to see both progress and of course, the work that.
- [15:24]
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- [16:23]
Kevin Levin
still needs to be done.
- [16:25]
Bill Kristol
No, I think it's two very important points. I am struck it's one thing, look, if Trump wants to have a more, quote, conservative view of American history and think that Joan Flor or whatever has gone too far in the other direction, fine. And he could have people he can give such speeches and he could even encourage others, certainly supporters of his defense of his can. But what's offensive, I think is, yeah, the attempt to suppress dissent, I mean, not so far, hopefully too much, literally suppressed dissent. A little bit of that in terms of funding and in terms of removing things from the park service, you know, government funded bookstores and placards and poster, you know, and memorials and so forth. So rewriting the official history, but also to suppress more broadly, to suppress the sense of making it seem vaguely unpatriotic and illegitimate. And you're not a good American if you have a more critical view of this part of the founding or of this event, this period in American history, whatever. So I think the hostility to criticism, that really is un American, I think one could say. And yeah, and that's one of the more offensive parts of it, I'd say. The other thing is, I mean, I'm old enough to go to have gone to grad school when they really were Marxists and there really was a Marxist school of interpretation of the founding property rights. Charles Beard, I mean, neo Marxist, quasi Marxist or something. But Hamilton, very bad because he was ally of the capitalist class and while others were wealthy landowners. Some of that certainly could be true, some of it not, whatever. But I'm struck how much the more modern, more pluralistic, inclusive, whatever his historians and historical products, how patriotic they are. I mean it's a liberal form of patriotism, which I think is good, but it's not. I mean you can't say the musical Hamilton is anti American, right? That's right, yes. That's the single most, maybe the single most popular, I don't know, event, you know, an impactful product of American popular culture in the last 15 years. You can't say that the biographies by, as you say, all these best selling biographies of various founders and Ron Chernow and all these people, you know, or people in the 19th century of Grant and of you with Robert Gould Shaw and others. These are not, they're most. I'm struck by that. I mean, I think they're. The right wing critique is just silly. I mean it's evident that these, that these are books that deepen one's understanding of America, but also I think the end probably one's attachment to America. If you read and these books are popular. That's encouraging, isn't it, that the citizenry want to read about these things.
- [18:50]
Kevin Levin
Absolutely. I'll throw in Nikole, Hannah Jones's name. I mean, I think if you want to pin the conservative response and sort of understand Trump's and the Trump administration's response to, you know, in terms of wanting to control the 250th narrative, I think you can pin it on her. On her in large part. And what's interesting about this is, and look I was critical of parts of the 1619 project when it came out Just like I'm critical of anything that I'm being asked to read and engage in. But I read something very recent from her, and she talked about sort of the process of writing that opening essay that became so controversial. And she was talking about her father who served in the military, and. And she was surprised by the extent to which she was feeling patriotic as she was coming out of writing that. And I thought, you know, that's something that more people should understand about, you know, her experience writing and working on the 1619 project. But, of course, we're so quick, I think, to dismiss one another for, you know, political reasons. You know, we are just in our silos. I think the most disturbing part of the last year and a half when it comes to the divisiveness of it all is the demonization of the National Park Service. And that, I think, was something I did not anticipate coming from the Trump administration. To think that National Park Service rangers are engaged in kind of subversive activity, unpatriotic activity at some of our most important historic sites is so unfortunate, and I think it's done a good deal of damage, because I wonder to what extent young people who are going through college thinking perhaps about a history. I'm sorry, a career in public history, perhaps a career in the National Park Service, look at this and say, you know what? I would really rather not be bothered with that. And who could blame them? But I think it's an incredible resource and the way it's been managed, I mean, just to see some of them now in the reflecting pool cleaning algae two weeks before the 250th, the official celebration, is just. It's so sad, but I mean, just emblematic of where we are. But I worry about the National Park Service, you know, as just one example.
- [21:10]
Bill Kristol
Yeah, it is kind of crazy. I mean, I know we took our kids a little bit to various battlefields and. And stuff. Our kids who are now, you know, obviously grown and have their own families take their. Taking their kids to stuff. But also, I've talked to many, many friends and many younger friends who now, you know, teenagers, whatever, who go. Who've gone on trips and driven west, and not west or south or any, you know, certainly Virginia here in Northern Virginia, there are many places that are very close, and almost none of them has had that kind. I mean, a lot of them are quite, you know, conservative ish, I would say, in terms of their own politics. And they've had good experiences visiting various places from Gettysburg to, you know, to Monticello. To, you know, many, many others, to the national parks out west and the idea that this is some kind of subversive organization, the National Park. Say a word more. I mean, I am struck how much Trump people have got, tried to really get into the bureaucracy and change. I mean, that's, we make fun sometimes that they're really ham handed attempts to ban certain photographs or get rid of, I don't know, Harriet Tubman or something from the accounts of the Underground Railroad or something crazy like that. But, but they really have tried. I mean, I think one shouldn't underestimate, on the other hand, how much they are committed to really whitewashing American history.
- [22:21]
Kevin Levin
Yeah, I mean, it's absurd to think. Just to get back to your earlier point about the subversiveness of supposed subversiveness of park rangers. I mean, to think that you would be stupid enough to volunteer to work for a federal agency to undercut the American narrative. I mean, anyone who knows anything about the National Park Service or any federal agency knows how slowly it works. It's a bureaucracy. It takes a long time for changes to really sort of, you know, come into their own. You know, look, the March 2025 executive order to Restore truth and Sanity, we all remember that, that sort of started it all off in terms of trying to regulate and control, you know, the National Park Service, specifically in the Smithsonian. And I think last summer there was a concerted attempt to call on individual parks to create lists of potentially problematic exhibits. Now, the problem with it was, and I've talked to plenty of National Park Service people, they really didn't get any clear directives. Everything was vague. No one really knew who they were answering to. And so what happened was, and I have the list of all of the items that were flagged. What happened is that some of the sites were a bit more aggressive in identifying potentially problematic exhibits. Others kind of, you could tell they sort of laid back a bit. Maybe they were waiting to see what would happen. As a result, a couple places, Harpers Ferry, I think, had an image removed that made the news a while back about the famous image of the enslaved man with the scarred. The severely scarred back. I believe that was removed here in Boston about a week and a half ago. A story broke about Bunker Hill taking down some exhibits about how Americans after the famous battle interpreted and used that site to advance their own respective causes. So those banners were deemed to be problematic in part because many of your viewers will remember the QR codes that were put up at all of these National Park Service sites that would allow anyone through their phone to leave a comment. Thankfully, and perhaps not surprisingly, overwhelmingly, these, these comments have been positive, praising the National Park Service. I think most of what has come down, from what I understand what I'm seeing, are at sites that are not straightforward historical sites. They're sites, they're national parks. Right. They're not necessarily historic sites. Right. More recreation areas, Acadia, and they have to do with global warming and other potentially problematic signage and exhibits. As far as the battlefields, other more straightforward historic sites, not much has happened. Some websites have been changed. There's no question about that. But I think what a lot of people anticipated not that long ago was a kind of wholesale change from the top down. And we haven't seen that yet. And hopefully, hopefully we won't. Just recently, of course, just to add one other dimension to this, I believe the courts ordered that some of the NEH grants that had been canceled were ordered to be reinstated. So it's hard to know where we're going from here. But look, we've got what. We're not even halfway through the second Trump administration. So I don't want to make any predictions.
- [25:54]
Bill Kristol
Yeah, no, for me, the bad news is two and a half years, a long time. The good news is, insofar as presumably this attempted, I'm going to call it whitewashing, hijacking, was. Would crest on July 4, 2026. We're only less than two weeks away from that. And as we speak here on Sunday, what is it? June 20th, 21st. I can't remember. 21st. Yeah. And I feel like, as you say, the country has not been as receptive to this, and even parts of the bureaucracy presumably haven't been. And certainly local communities have pushed back and so forth. And you all historians like you, and there's been a fair amount of public pushback on some of these things. And. Yeah. So I feel somewhat relieved that in this part, I mean, God knows what Trump could do in all kinds of other ways. But in this aspect, maybe it's not having too much of an effect.
- [26:40]
Kevin Levin
I don't want to forget about what happened just a couple days ago in Philadelphia, the President's house, where a court did order that the Trump administration can remove the original exhibits from the site that told the story of the enslaved and have them replaced. So these new sort of panel exhibits, these wayside exhibits, do talk about slavery. I've seen them. They're on the National Park Service's website. They do address the horrors of slavery. They don't, however, center the stories of the enslaved. So the story, for example, of Ona judge, who, of course, escaped from slavery out of Philadelphia while Washington was out of town. He attempted, of course, as many people know, to have her re enslaved, but was unsuccessful. That story, I think, will be more difficult to find compared to, you know, the original exhibits, and that's unfortunate. There are plenty of places to find, you know, a story of Washington, his presidency, his role in the American Revolution. It's all over Philadelphia. This was the one site where the story of the men and women he enslaved was sort of front and center. And I think we need that. And there's nothing we shouldn't feel. Well, we shouldn't feel as if the entire edifice will collapse if we are somehow exposed to this history.
- [27:59]
Bill Kristol
Yeah, no, I mean, I think Lincoln is our greatest. Lincoln was our greatest president and is our most revered one, I would say. And Lincoln, I mean, of course, he fought the Civil War, so he couldn't very well avoid it. But you know, slavery and understanding of slavery and coming to grips with slavery in American history is central not just to him as president during the Civil War, but to his entire life, really. Going back to the speeches and speech of 1838 and. And stuff, and. And. And certainly the second inaugural, I mean, considered by many, maybe the greatest or one of his two greatest speeches is kind of about slavery and also does not shy away from saying that it's been here for 250 years and it takes another such amount, if it takes many more years to expiate the sin, that. That is what, you know, that's God's judgment of that very complicated, complicated theology of that paragraph. But, I mean, it's like, who. So what do we, you know, the idea that this is only. Oh, only in, you know, 2018 did, you know, everyone got. Everyone got. Or 2017, everyone got woke and. And decided to focus on this is so childish. If anything, it's the other way. Right. There was a massive attempt to ignore what Lincoln asked us to take seriously for the next 60, 70, 80 years.
- [29:06]
Kevin Levin
You know, that's right. I look hovering in the background, and this is me as the sort of historian of Civil War memory speaking. I mean, hovering in the background is this concerted movement, a very successful one that was not centralized. That happened in communities across much of the country, including the south, much of it in the south, where communities decided to remove their Confederate monuments. Many of these communities, where these monuments, these statues stood for 100 years, went up in places where more than half the population was African American. But because of Jim Crow because of the state constitutions making it easy to bar African Americans from voting. They never had a say in who would represent them in public spaces. And that's how these monuments and statues had always functioned. And so to finally arrive at a point in American history where you are represented in local state government, you do have more power and you're using it to improve your communities as you see it, Right? I mean, to see that as somehow woke rather than what should have always been the case. Right. Those voices is just a misreading and an ignorance of American history in my view at least.
- [30:18]
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- [30:59]
Bill Kristol
Cards issued by JPMorgan J's bank and a member of DIC Subject Credit Approval terms apply. I mean, I didn't realize until the fights over the monuments and the statues how many I kind of said, okay, they would put away after the Civil War. People were proud of their relatives who had fought and fought, you know, presumably foolishly I would say, but honorably and as they saw it, and it's okay, as a little local pride, and maybe one shouldn't, but so many of them were not, of course, from the 1860s or 70s and 1880s. So many of them were put up. Most of them were from either the, you know, to justify Jim Crow or to just in the 1890s and 1900s or to justify, correct me if I'm wrong, justify the kind of nativism and racism of the 20s or in the 50s and 60s to justify the resistance to civil rights. I mean, that's right, they were a self consciously political statement. And therefore you can't really complain that 50, 60 years later people say, you know what? That was not a self consciously political statement we want to embrace. Isn't that true of South Carolina that all these things that allegedly went so far back went back to like 1954 or something like that.
- [32:00]
Kevin Levin
Absolutely. And the one. One of the largest monuments that once graced the grounds of Arlington National Cemetery, that was dedicated in 1914 in part by President Woodrow Wilson. He gave the dedication address. It was removed, I think, in December of 2023, you know, after Congress had commissioned a group to review Confederate symbols at military sites. And, you know, Trump has already said, and this was a while back, last year, that he wants to reinstall the Confederate monument in Arlington. And that was again 1914. And the idea that this is, according to many people, that symbolizes reunion and reconciliation between north and South. I mean, is absolute nonsense. I mean, the United Daughters of the Confederacy that were responsible for many of these monuments, they had no interest, first and foremost, in reconciliation. They wanted to celebrate the Confederacy. And they did this in part by distorting the history of African Americans. And if you look at that monument, that memorial, it contained the image of the loyal mammy figure. Right. If you think of Gone with the Wind, the sort of loyal mammy that takes care of the white children, she is there sort of clutching the white child of the Confederate officer going off to war, sort of a blatant sort of lost cause symbol. And to think that this would be appropriate to put back right. In 2026 is just. Is just bizarre to me. But again, it's just another example of the way in which that movement to remove those monuments is still very much part of our national discourse.
- [33:37]
Bill Kristol
Yeah, you've written about the Civil. So much about the Civil War, but I think particularly interesting. Well, one of the interesting things is, for me, has been, which I hadn't really focused on the 150th anniversary of the Civil War. And the way in which we, I mean, say a word about that celebration or series of celebrations, it wasn't as centralized or as nationalized as the 250th is or as attempted to be. I mean, one thing I would say is that Fall of Congress find they appropriate some money and all that. One of the great things about America is they don't actually control the narrative.
- [34:09]
Bretzky
Right.
- [34:09]
Bill Kristol
I mean, even on the 250th. But the civil War was even less so, right?
- [34:13]
Kevin Levin
Oh, absolutely. In fact, I mean, the centennial in the early 1960s, that had the backing of the federal government and that became very controversial right away, because what do you do when you have a meeting of the state commissions? They all come together in South Carolina, you know, in the, well, 1960. Well, African Americans who are representing their states can't stay in the hotels. So right from the beginning, you have all these kinds of. These kinds of problems. And so in 2000, well, when they first were sort of thinking about the sesquicentennial, the 150th, the federal government just said, we're just not interested. And so that left it to the states to take over. And some of them did. The National Park Service filled in a lot of the gaps. Virginia took the lead. I was involved in the state commission before I moved to Boston, where I now live. And what was interesting is that right out of the Gates, the narrative was we are not going to revisit the sort of traditional lost cause reunion narrative. We are going to be expansive. We're going to talk about some of the tough problems related to slavery and emancipation. We're going to talk about black military service during the Civil War. And I think overall, it was as successful as it could be. There was a lot to take advantage of, especially if you were in the Virginia area, but in other states as well. The interesting thing, of course, is that it ended in 2015. It ended. One of the last big events was Richmond, Virginia, former capital of the Confederacy. And the city put on one hell of a show. It involved African American soldiers marching into town, as they did in April 1865, to liberate that city. It was very much a celebration of Union and the end of slavery. And then, of course, a few months later, the horrific shootings in Charleston took place involving Dylann Roof and the murder of nine churchgoers. And that almost continued, in a weird way, the Sesquicentennial commemoration, because I think many more Americans were thinking about the history and the legacy of the Civil War through the lens of public displays of flags and monuments than we're ever thinking about, you know, a moment during the. The official 150th. And so I feel like in some way, we're still kind of trying to come out of it that, like I said at the beginning, that language is still so pervasive. We talk about Trump as being a, quote, unquote, Confederate president. Right. So that language is still. I find that language to be unhelpful, to say the least. But it's still there. Yeah, yeah.
- [36:57]
Bill Kristol
Race. I mean, the centrality of race, honestly, is something I was aware of. I wasn't an idiot. But again, I don't think. But I mean, just how central and how much a colored, if I can use that word, everything else, not for the just immediate aftermath. Obviously, everyone understands 1865, 66, 7. But for decades, really forever since. I mean, the way in which we think about what happened and what caused it and how to come to grips with it. And it really is something you've heard about a lot.
- [37:27]
Kevin Levin
Me, too. I mean, for me, it's been an education. I mean, I'm originally from Atlantic City, New Jersey. I grew up on the beach. I didn't think about these issues at all growing up and, you know, finally getting into the Civil War. I don't mind admitting that my earliest interests were the battlefields, the experiences of the soldiers. But some of the most exciting work coming out of the field of history now is about these larger issues. And I think they've helped me better understand my place in this country. I don't feel any more ashamed. I don't feel any prouder. I just feel as if I'm better grounded as a result of understanding these issues. And so I kind of. I'm always curious as to, you know, the sort of strong reactions that people have about the way in which history has evolved, the historiography, if you will.
- [38:19]
Bill Kristol
Well, that's a heartening. Maybe that's a good note to end on that. I mean, I think it is. I also have been sort of heartened, as I say, despite being depressed. I live right here outside Washington, so I see the effects of Trump's attempts at hijackings, more close ups, as it were. But it is heartening to hear you say that, that you think that the country as a whole. And I do think, I do think the country, I feel like maybe our generation, but I think also younger ones have come. Yes, there's been a kind of real, genuine education, not just a kind, hopefully kind of a reaction or counter reaction in some of these areas. And I think your, your work's helped so much with that. And I should look at your feed yourself stack. But really, the book, I'm really looking forward to it. Give me, give me. Give us just close with two minutes about Robert Gouldshaw that people don't know. I mean, you may not know much about him at all. Say a word. Just about what he did. It's kind of amazing.
- [39:04]
Kevin Levin
I mean, yeah, I mean, born in, born in Massachusetts in 1837 to an abolitionist family. Attended Harvard, did not graduate school. Started off right at the beginning of the Civil War in the second, sort of a well off.
- [39:16]
Bill Kristol
I mean.
- [39:16]
Kevin Levin
Oh, yeah. Brahmin elite Boston family. Volunteered right at the beginning of the war in the 2nd Massachusetts Regiment and eventually, of course, took command in early 1863 of the 1st Black Regiment raised in the north, the 54th Massachusetts. I think that's what most people know him from, again from the movie Glory in 1989. And this is, I think, the most expensive, expansive, you know, in terms of depth biography of Robert Gould Shaw. A lot of conflict with his parents. He never this image of Shaw as an abolitionist as everything of. As everything sort of leading to his command of this black regiment, that it was inevitable. A very comforting story, but obviously, like most comforting stories in history, not quite true. And so the book explores exactly the contingency of how he arrived at that point and especially the role that veterans of the 54th and his mother after the war played in turning him into this hero or this martyr to emancipation and the nation beginning in 1863. He died in July of 1863, leading a famous charge outside of Charleston at a place called Fort Wagner. And so he dies at just the right moment during the war, right in the middle of it, right as Lincoln, of course, he's just signed the Emancipation Proclamation. The war is transforming in fundamental ways, and it was interesting for me to be able to explore that transformation, that change through the eyes of just one soldier, one officer.
- [40:49]
Bill Kristol
Yeah. So interesting. Well, we look forward to the book and thanks for all your work in educating us. And let's see what happens over the next two weeks right up to July 4th.
- [40:59]
Kevin Levin
But we should check in again. It's.
- [41:02]
Bill Kristol
But people should enjoy July 4th. That's my. Don't let. Don't let Trump ruin your. Ruin your. Ruin your enjoyment of our Independence Day. Right?
- [41:09]
Kevin Levin
I agree.
- [41:10]
Bill Kristol
Good. Thanks, Kevin. Thank. And thank you all for joining us on Bulwark on Sunday.
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